Katarina Mid Lane Wild Rift overview and best build snapshot
Best Build
Quick snapshot of the default setup for this guide.
Items
Summoner Spells
Spell 1
Flash
Spell 2
Ignite
How to play
Stay healthy until you can finish a target Use your 1st ability to throw a dagger and finish minions from range when walking up would lead to a bad trade.
Fight around your dropped daggers Use your 3rd ability to jump onto a dropped dagger, damaging nearby enemies and reducing the dash cooldown. Keep a safe target nearby to jump away to.
Wait for enemy stuns before going in Wait until enemies have used their stuns, then help finish a low-health target. Champion takedowns greatly reduce your ability cooldowns so you can keep fighting.
Guide author
Royal
Royal has reached Rank 1 in EU and NA, and Legend and Sovereign on the Chinese server. Created by Royal with input from high elo and professional players and the WildRiftGuides Discord community.
Rank 1 on this champion? Help improve this guide and receive credit. Contact us on Discord.
Strengths
- Her dagger-and-Shunpo (3rd) loop chains blinks and resets, so one takedown can cascade into a multikill before anyone reacts.
- One of the best roamers in mid: she shoves, leaves, and turns side-lane mistakes into snowballing picks.
- Elite at deleting squishies in fights, since she can blink past the frontline and drop her whole rotation on a carry.
Weaknesses
- Thin and melee early, easy to shove in and harass before her first item and resets come online.
- No real defense once Shunpo (3rd) is spent, so a single point of hard crowd control deletes her mid-combo.
- Heavily snowball-dependent: shut her down early and she has no scaling pattern to fall back on.
Katarina Mid Lane Wild Rift best build, items, runes, summoner spells, and skill order
ITEM BUILD
Best Wild Rift build for Katarina Mid Lane, including items, runes, summoner spells, and skill order.
STARTING ITEM
Early ability power for her Q (1st), which is her only trade before her resets come online.
BOOTS
Magic penetration is what makes her reset chain kill outright instead of chunking and stranding her.
CORE BUILD
Crits against low health targets, which turns every cleanup blink into a kill instead of a chunk.
Multiplies every dagger pickup and Death Lotus (Ult) hit, making Katarina's first takedown arrive sooner so Voracity (Passive) can reset the abilities that continue the fight.
Her rotation can trigger the mark, and its movement speed helps Katarina reach another Dagger or target after a takedown reduces her current cooldowns. Voracity (Passive) returns abilities; it does not automatically move or retarget her.
Cuts the magic resist that turns her rotation into a chunk, which is what stops the reset chain before it starts. Choose it over Cryptbloom when enemies are stacking magic resist and maximum personal damage matters more than ability haste and team healing.
Build this for when her ultimate is interrupted and their team is on top of her. Buy Seeker's Armguard early for the armor and ability power.
SITUATIONAL ITEMS
The alternative to Void Staff. Less penetration, but the ability haste and healing on takedown help when she cleans up a fight her team started. Choose it when enemies have not built much magic resist, so trading Void Staff's extra damage for more ability haste and an area heal after takedowns is worthwhile.
Build this when the enemy has shields that keep absorbing her reset chain.
Build this when the enemy has crowd control aimed at her ultimate, since interrupting it ends most of her damage.
RUNES
KEYSTONE
She opens by blinking onto a target, so she reliably lands the first hit.
PRIMARY
Her E (3rd) is a blink, giving her an easy way to trigger the bonus true damage as she enters a fight.
Her rotation pours into one target at a time, which is what this rewards.
Her passive runs on takedowns, so the stacks build faster on her than on almost anyone.
SECONDARY
She has to farm at range before her daggers come online, and this keeps her on the wave while she does.
SITUATIONAL RUNES
Take this over Second Wind against an all-in lane. Reducing the first three hits lets Katarina reach a dagger and Shunpo (3rd) away instead of dying before her reset pattern starts.
Take this over First Strike against teams that force extended fights instead of giving Katarina clean picks. Her reset chain keeps Conqueror active through the brawl.
SUMMONER SPELLS
MAIN SPELLS
Flash
Must take. Her blade resets let her chase, but Flash is what she uses to enter a fight from an angle nobody is covering.
Ignite
Take this for early kill pressure in lane and on roams, since kills are what turn a mid lead into pressure on the rest of the map. The Grievous Wounds also makes it strong into champions with a lot of healing.
SITUATIONAL SPELLS
Barrier
Take this over Ignite when the enemy bursts her out of her ultimate. Channeling it is the most exposed she ever is, and this keeps the daggers falling.
SKILL ORDER
Skill Priority Order
- 11st Ability
Q - 23rd Ability
E - 32nd Ability
W
Katarina Mid Lane Wild Rift matchups and counters
Wild Rift matchup guide for Katarina Mid Lane, covering favorable lanes and difficult counters to prepare for in ranked.
Good Matchups
These champions are favorable matchups for this pick in Wild Rift. You have advantages against them and can play more aggressively.
Veigar
A slow, immobile mage whose whole kill setup is a cage you can blink straight out of. He scales hard if left alone, but he rarely survives long enough to get there against you.
Lux
A missed Light Binding (1st) removes Lux's hard crowd control, but Lucent Singularity (3rd) still slows and automatically detonates when Katarina enters it, while Prismatic Barrier (2nd) can shield both ways. Shunpo (3rd) around E's (3rd) area and commit only when enough damage remains to finish through the shield.
Orianna
Her ball control and shield make her hard to chip, but she is immobile, and one clean commit kills her before she can reposition the ball for the shield.
Vel'Koz
Vel'Koz is immobile and becomes stationary only while channeling Life Form Disintegration Ray (Ult); his basic abilities do not root him in place. Shunpo (3rd) can cross his skillshot angles, but save it to avoid the knockback that would interrupt Death Lotus (Ult).
Akali
Her shroud breaks targeting, but your daggers hit the ground she stands on and Shunpo (3rd) can target the blade, so the trick that saves her elsewhere fails, and you out-reset her in skirmishes.
Katarina Counters
These champions counter this pick in Wild Rift and can be difficult matchups. Learn how to play against them or consider banning them.
Kassadin
He scales past the snowball you are trying to build: his ultimate gives him a blink to dodge your dive and chase your retreat, and his magic shield blunts the burst you live on.
Diana
The moment you Shunpo (3rd) in, she shields the burst, drops her crowd control, and all-ins you back with better defenses than yours, while her own resets snowball off your death.
Irelia
At melee range she simply out-duels you: she out-sustains your daggers, her minion resets snowball faster, and her stun punishes any dive with lockdown you have no answer to.
Lissandra
Glacial Path (3rd) is Lissandra's projectile and recast blink, not her root. Ring of Frost (2nd) roots Katarina when she Shunpos (3rd) into melee, while Frozen Tomb (Ult) can stun Katarina or put Lissandra in self-stasis through the follow-up.
Galio
Galio has a periodically refreshed magic-damage shield and damage reduction from Shield of Durand (2nd), but his passive does not grant magic resistance. Justice Punch (3rd) can interrupt Death Lotus (Ult) with a knockup, and Shield of Durand (2nd) can taunt Katarina after she blinks in.
Katarina Mid Lane Wild Rift game strategy and teamfighting guide
Wild Rift game strategy for Katarina Mid Lane, from early lane control through mid and late game map play to final teamfights.